In Japan, as one type of broadcasting service of terrestrial digital broadcasting, datacasting printing service is being carried out. Datacasting printing service can be received by a digital television (hereinafter referred to as a DTV) that has the ability to control a printing apparatus (hereinafter referred to as a printer). A user possessing a DTV that can handle datacasting printing can print information on programs, weather forecasts, news information and the like using a printer connected to the DTV and obtain print contents.
Standards for broadcasting and operational guidelines relating to datacasting printing service in Japan are described in Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) “Data Coding and Transmission Specification for Digital Broadcasting” ARIB STD-B24 version 4.4 (hereinafter referred to as Document 1) and Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) “Operational Guidelines for Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting” ARIB TR-B14 version 2.7 (hereinafter referred to as Document 2). Based on these documents, the printing formats that DTV can execute as datacasting printing services can be broadly divided into the following three types:
Printing scheme (1): The DTV acquires print data included in the broadcast signals and requests that the printer print.
Printing scheme (2): The DTV captures the datacasting screen that is currently being displayed and requests that the printer print.
Printing scheme (3): The DTV requests that the printer print print data present on a server on the internet.
However, at the printer, it sometimes happens that, depending on usage environment conditions such as temperature, humidity, and time elapsed, the tint of the printed contents changes or becomes blurred. In order to reduce the occurrence of such phenomena, the printer executes a maintenance process immediately after the printer power is turned on, when executing printing, or after a predetermined time elapsed since the preceding print execution. In order to avoid unnecessary maintenance processes, it is now common to execute the maintenance process after detecting that printing has actually been executed. However, because the time required for the maintenance process can sometimes take several minutes, if a maintenance process is executed when executing printing, the user cannot obtain the print contents quickly.
In order to deal with this type of problem, a technique is disclosed in JP-2003-334994-A in which, by detecting the activation of application software that frequently involves the execution of printing and automatically requesting a maintenance process, the time to obtain print contents can be shortened.
The datacasting printing service described above mainly has broadcast program-related print contents, for example, print contents consisting of local information introduced by a program. Therefore, ordinarily, acquisition of datacasting print contents associated with the program necessarily is associated with the broadcast time of the program. Therefore, once broadcasting of the program ends, so too does the opportunity to obtain print contents. In other words, there is a problem in that, with the datacasting printing service, once the broadcast program ends the print contents cannot be acquired from the broadcast signals or from the server.
In addition, with the datacasting printing service described above, the print contents are often revised/updated or deleted as the broadcast program proceeds. For example, in the first 15 minutes of a 1-hour quiz program answer sheet print data may be transmitted, and in the last 15 minutes answer result print data may be transmitted. In such a case, print data time control is stricter than in a case in which the print data is associated with the broadcast time of the program as described above.
Consequently, in a case in which the printer has started to execute a maintenance process in response to a user instruction to print the print contents, if the maintenance process is not finished within a time period in which the print data can be acquired, there is a possibility that the user might be unable to obtain the print contents.
It might be thought possible to arrange matters so that the maintenance process is executed at short intervals so as to enable the user to execute printing at any time. However, leaving the power to the printer ON and executing maintenance processes regardless of the fact that the user is not executing printing is not only a consumption of power and ink in excess of that which is required but is also likely to produce discomfort in the form of frequent emission of operating noise as well.